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NFL cheerleaders in Cincinnati, Oakland file suits over hourly wages

Bengals cheerleaders.jpg

Cincinnati Bengals cheerleaders perform during the second half of an NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 29, 2013, in Cincinnati. Ben Gal cheerleader Alexa Brenneman recently filed a suit over her hourly wages with the team.
(AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

Every game day Alexa Brenneman , 24, a Ben Gal cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals, woke up at 4 a.m.to get ready. Her hair and make-up had to be perfect before she reached the stadium at 8 a.m. for two practices and autograph signing before the game started. After that, it was four straight hours of cheering, dancing, and smiling.

And she loved it.

Until she did the numbers on what she was being paid and realized she was being exploited.

The website goes on to say:

On the Ben-Gals squad, Brenneman was paid a total of $855 for her time as a Ben-Gals cheerleader, and says she spent over 300 hours performing, practicing and attending events. (The one week she missed a game for a funeral, she wasn't paid.) Minimum wage in Ohio is $7.85, but Brenneman's pay comes to about less than $2.85 an hour.

Time reports that Brenneman is the second NFL cheerleader to take legal action against her team alleging that her hourly wages are so low, they're less than minimum wage. In January, Lacy T. (her full name is not disclosed) filed a class-action lawsuit against the Oakland Raiders for wage theft. And last week, another Raiderette, Sarah G., 29, joined her, the website reports.

Similar payment for cheerleaders is common across the NFL, Time reports, although Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, pay minimum wage and overtime for their cheerleaders, the Sea Gals. "We have been doing this for years, and I have never seen a contract like this. This women don't understand that this is illegal," Leslie Levy, one of the cheerleaders' lawyers, told Time.

Time says if the numbers alleged by the plaintiffs are correct, NFL cheerleader wages are at something close to or less than those of unskilled minimum wage workers.